CHAPTER 10

Stage One: Family Permission

While we’ve discussed finding little nuggets of joy in your personal life, we’ve yet to discover that balance for the people in your family. Having fun with your family has five stages, just as your Personal Oases do. Yet how you apply this process to your family is a bit different.

Remember, when I say family, I mean the most flexible definition possible. For the sake of clarity, family can include your traditional family — if you’re close to them — as well as best friends, parents, siblings, boyfriends/girlfriends, the grandparents you never forget to visit on weekends, your party-animal roommates, and even your trusted dog Sparky.*

Let’s get right down to it. If these people care about you, they want to see you and spend time with you. Being with you is a strength to them and vice versa. You must make time for these people. Not just for you. Not just for your work. But for them. Yes, you’re doing work to make money, which is important for taking care of necessities — for you and those that you love. Yet, after you’ve satisfied the physiological rung in Maslow’s proverbial hierarchy of needs, what they really want is you.

Remember that survey of children around the country? The one where we asked kids about having fun? They had some interesting insights to offer about family, too.

One ten-year-old boy in Arizona stated, “Money is important, but for a kid, it’s more important the time parents spend with their kids. I prefer to go to the park with my family than an expensive gift or a video game.”

How about this eight-year-old girl in New York: “My mommy always works, and I always tell her to come and play games with me. I love when we dance together.”

Then there’s the ten-year-old girl in Michigan who couldn’t have been clearer when she suggested, “Kids really want more time with [their parents], more than toys and new stuff.”

The time that we spend with family can’t wait until tomorrow. The Culture of WIN is about making it worth it now. The good news is that, like scheduling our personal wins, making a change to have more fun is, well, fun!

Finding Family Permission

Your first step toward giving yourself permission to enjoy Family Oases begins with a simple question:

Please write your answer to this question: Why is it important for me to spend time with my family?

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Candidly, I find a whole lot of people struggle in this department. Maybe we don’t have a relationship that we consider positive. Maybe we are afraid of being vulnerable. We feel our imperfections hurt the people around us. Maybe, just maybe, we are caught up in WISHing our problems away: it’s not great now, but someday, hopefully, these relationships will improve.

Part of the goal of this chapter is to give you the warm fuzzies — the real kind. These positive thoughts will form reasons to either strengthen your resolve and build up relationships into something glorious or provide you with the motivation to restart.

Right now, wherever you’re at in this process emotionally, just trust me for now. Having fun with people you care about has the life- and career-boosting potential of a hundred terawatts of power.

Let’s explore why Family Oases are both necessary and powerful.

Reason One: Relationships Can Always Be Strengthened

In my work with leaders, I often straddle the line between business coach and personal therapist. Occasionally, clients tell me secrets that they haven’t told their spouse. Often, they tell me that their marriages no longer have the connection they once had. I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard others lamenting, “We’re drifting apart.”

The natural question to ask a person experiencing this malaise is, “Are you spending time together?” It’s a simple thing, just being in each other’s presence. Yet for some reason, this is difficult for people invested in their careers, especially when spouses work together.

According to a report from the National Marriage Project, married people who had “couple time” or a “date night” at least once per week were about 3.5 times more likely to report having “very happy” marriages compared with those who spent less time together.

Additionally, if couples spent at least one dedicated time together per week, they reported higher satisfaction in communication and sexually — both spouses were more than three times more likely to report higher satisfaction in the bedroom.

And this need not be just about marriage. The simple action of having consistent fun time together can do wonders for any relationship.

Reason Two: Some Things Happen Only Once, So Stay in the Moment

Life throws you curveballs sometimes. More often than not, they are little surprises that charm you. You sit back and enjoy those moments.

Unless you’re buried head down in the glowing screen of the Culture of WISH.

You might say, “Walking Sparky isn’t a priority right now because there’s stuff that needs to be done. Later, I’ll have more time for a walk.” Right?

Or, if you have a boyfriend, “It’s okay if I skip date night because if I cruise through these expense reports, we’ll have plenty of time for dates some other time.” Right?

Or, if you’re a parent, “It’s okay if I don’t show up for my daughter’s soccer game because she’ll have another one next week.” Right?

Don’t worry. You can always make up for lost time, right?

Time is a flowing river, and it is foolish to think that you can paddle back upstream. Your child is going to take his or her first step only once. Your significant other will be in desperate need of a listening ear for that particular problem only once. You get only one chance to go to your sister’s wedding . . . well, knowing your sister, maybe not. You get the idea.

All of us have missed these moments. Even with the best of intentions, we cannot be omnipresent, nor are we perfect. However, there is a huge difference between missing moments because we’re human and missing moments because we failed to make an effort.

Bronnie Ware was a hospice nurse who worked with endof-life patients. She wrote a book and was interviewed many times about the “top five regrets of the dying.” She would ask her patients about their greatest regrets. One of the most common regrets, in addition to wishing that they hadn’t worked as hard, was wishing that they had had the courage to express their feelings as well as to stay in touch with their friends.

Sometime in the future, you too will reach the end of your days. By living a life full of Family Oases, these kinds of regrets need not be yours.

Reason Three: Having Fun with Family Increases Your Success at Work

You read that right.

Your family can become a source of strength for your career. It’s quite simple: when you feel closer to loved ones, you’ll also perform better at work.

On the surface, it makes sense, right? The more emotionally built up we are at home, the stronger we’ll feel at work. It’s something we rarely discuss let alone acknowledge on an intellectual level. Yet we’ve all seen the impact of the reverse. How many times at the office have you seen the guy with a five o’clock shadow and the distinct look of having slept on the couch the night before?

This is referred to as the “work-home resources model” in a study by Lieke ten Brummelhuis and Arnold Bakker, published by the American Psychological Association. They found that spouses who have a good and stable marriage are more likely to experience better performance at work.

Again, I’ve seen that positive effect come from other relationships in the lives of my clients. When they have been able to get closer to their children and other loved ones, their confidence increases and success flows more easily to them. Want to boost your career? Make spending time with family a priority.

And, here’s a bonus benefit: the time you spend with them will boost their performance at work, too! It makes sense, right? Since these Oases are a party for two or more, the benefits flow in all directions. So, want your loved ones to succeed? Have fun with them.

Reason Four: You’re Building Something That Lasts Far beyond Work

What we create with our family has the potential to last not just for a lifetime but for generations.

Occasionally, I’ll attend a family reunion with my in-laws. It’s somewhat overwhelming. My wife and I have established that I have some issues when it comes to unstructured mingling with large groups of humans. And, boy oh boy, is a reunion of my in-laws a large group.

My wife’s grandparents began a remarkable yet humble relationship as a farmer and his wife in northern Utah, when they married in 1941. They had five boys, who had thirty children in total. This led to 117 great-grandchildren and counting, and — as of this writing — three great-great-grandchildren . . . and counting. In short, their marriage has left its mark on more than 150 people.

That’s not old-fashioned, that’s just life.

If you’re not a mother or father, you can influence the lives of others by making a concerted effort to spend time with them. There are plenty of examples of individuals who have left their mark on many people without having had children or gotten married.

You don’t need to have the traditional nuclear family to have a lasting impact on those whom you’ve labeled as “family.” The choice you make to spend time with them on a consistent basis can send ripples that will last for centuries.

Reason Five: You’re Creating Lasting, Positive Memories

When you engage in these Family Oases, you’re building up a deep reservoir of positive memories for both you and those you love. This deepens and strengthens your relationship.

Consider someone whom you personally love and admire. Now consider the memories you have of this person. What stands out to you? Unless you are a savant, odds are you don’t remember every single moment of every day. Instead, you’re likely to remember just a handful of sweet moments — moments largely out of the ordinary.

Our brain, for a variety of reasons, is wired that way. We’re attuned to registering things that are out of the norm. By taking time to create Oases with your family, you’re creating a kind of memory bond from your loved ones to you and vice versa.

Remember that Oasis journal I mentioned earlier in the book? Think of this as your memory reserve; a magic treasure chest that you can turn to when you’re feeling gloomy, down in the dumps, or just plain bummed. You can read your journal for a quick, feel-good dopamine rush with zero side effects.

Reason Six: You’re Rewarding Your Family

Face the facts: you are magnificent.

You may not think it. You’re skeptical when you hear it. You may or may not love hearing it said. Yet it’s true.

Just being around you lifts others up and makes them feel incredible. Is that part of your brain that loves positive attention humming? Good.

Give people the opportunity to bask in your glorious presence. Too often, in a reasonable attempt to #stayhumble, we forget how much of an influence we are on people. Creating Oases gives you an opportunity to be a positive influence on your family.

There are roles that come with the territory of influencing children: teacher, nurturer, provider, protector, therapist. The list of titles is substantial; just don’t forget about numero uno: hero.

So, go on. Put on your cape. Be their hero.

My wife and I experience this weekly, if not daily, with our young ’uns. My wife will leave to run a short errand in the neighborhood. As soon as she gets back and the garage door closes, the kids jump up and scream, “Mommy!” and greet her with a hug. Now imagine me, sitting on the couch incredulously with a “What am I? Chopped liver?” face. Of course, I’m mostly kidding. I too get my fair share of rock-star treatment from the kids just for showing up and being Dad.

Everyone can. You can be somebody’s hero.

Do you have a picture of why these family Oases aren’t just a good idea but rather a necessity? Do you feel the motivation and, more importantly, the permission to set a schedule for spending time with loved ones? That was the goal in this chapter.

Once again, I hand you the permit you need to move forward with having family fun. The license is yours. Drive joyously.

If you didn’t do so in the Personal Oasis section, turn to the back of the book where there’s a handy-dandy, premade license for you. You can fill it out with your name and picture and add a motivational quote to remind you of the importance of enjoying these Family Oases. Here’s an example:

“We are fa-mi-ly. I got all my sisters with me.”

Now let’s figure out how best to spend time with those special people that get to spend time with you.

* Your distant, hippie, thrice-removed cousin, who waits tables and surfs on a beach in Argentina, doesn’t count.